Nintendo Wii offered on cruise ships, old people finally stop playing shuffleboard

by John Bardinelli { Mar 29th 2007 at 9:13AM }

Norwegian Cruise Line today announced it will offer guests a new service aboard their luxury liners: Nintendo Wii games. The system is already on all NCL America ships and will be rolled out to the rest of the fleet by next month. Each set-up comes equipped with Wii Sports, Wii Play, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, and Excite Truck (which, embarrassingly, forgot to pack its mini-games). Guests can play the Wii on large screens in each ship's atrium and kids will have special kiosks so they don't have to fight their grandparents for a turn.

[Update: added some more pics so you can get a better feel of that cruise-ship Wii gaming experience!]

Tags: cruise, nintendo, wii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Colin @ Mar 29th 2007 9:15AM

I don't get the whole Nintendo going after crypt keepers thing...

I thought kids rebelled against their parents and grandparents...does some 13 year old REALLY want to have ths same game system that mothball smelling granny has?

Todd @ Mar 29th 2007 9:28AM

Wow, that is so cool. Big screen projection, being on the floor with lots of room, going nuts because you're completely blizted. Fun times.

JodyAnthony @ Mar 29th 2007 9:29AM

I can't wait till people that think negatively of the elderly become elderly themselves.

AirIntake @ Mar 29th 2007 9:30AM

The Wii (or anything 480i/p) would look horrible if it was displayed on a 50ft screen and you stand 10ft away from it. Those would be some big, muddled pixels.

JodyAnthony @ Mar 29th 2007 9:30AM

on topic: anything that gets more people playing video games is great for us as gamers. Plus Wii games are fun as hell.

As for me, if I were on the cruise ship, I would be out on deck watching the ocean, not playing a video game that I can play anywhere.

http://jodyanthony.deviantart.com

Virtua Fanboy @ Mar 29th 2007 9:38AM

Ya, don't you know everytime I've gone on vacation and went on a cruise I wished that they had a video game I could play. LoL. Who wants to go scuba diving, hitting on chics at the open bar, or hit on chics at the pool, or go dancing w/chics, (hence hitting on them, lol) or makin eyes at chics from across the dinery while eating the badass cuisine, or...God I miss being single, lol.

robert @ Mar 29th 2007 9:39AM

seriously, what kind of drugs were they on when they designed that room.

Paul @ Mar 29th 2007 10:11AM

robert -

AWESOME ONES.

Myke @ Mar 29th 2007 9:48AM

Jody, check out my latest deviation, I finally got the balls to do it... let me know what you think.

JodyAnthony @ Mar 29th 2007 10:05AM

Myke: That's awesome!

Thryon @ Mar 29th 2007 10:05AM

"The Wii (or anything 480i/p) would look horrible if it was displayed on a 50ft screen and you stand 10ft away from it. Those would be some big, muddled pixels."

I can tell you from experience that the Wii looked muddled on my 51" HDTV from 8ft away, but looked horrible on my 106" screen (via projector) from 12ft away.

"Plus Wii games are fun as hell"
I agree....HELL was the first thing that came to my mind after playing the Wii for a short period. On a side note, I am no longer a Wii owner.

JodyAnthony @ Mar 29th 2007 10:07AM

lolz Thryon u r sooo kewl h8ting things every1 else liekz!! can I have ur babiez?

Lagomorpho @ Mar 29th 2007 10:39AM

Are colors always inverted in Norwegia?

robert @ Mar 29th 2007 10:19AM

looks like that photo was taken on acid in the 80's

32_Footsteps @ Mar 29th 2007 10:23AM

Jody, Futurama already covered that. Ever see the episode with the time skips?

Kid in front of a social security building: "Why should we have to pay social security to all these seniors?"

Time skip makes the kid become an old man: "I want my money!"

People always complain about when their things are marketed to older people until they become older people. I personally can't wait until I'm a grandparent and buying stuff when others can't because I'm retired and thus have the free time to wait at stores.

JodyAnthony @ Mar 29th 2007 10:28AM

I love futurama.

Also I can't wait until I'm a crotchety old man. its going to be the best. I'll be able to wander around in a bathrobe and slippers wherever I want, get senior specials, get harrassed by AARP, yell at people for no reason, keep baseballs/frisbees that are hit/thrown into my yard..truly it will be magnificent

Paul @ Mar 29th 2007 10:46AM

I think the decorations of that room somehow managed to give me diabetes

Auron @ Mar 29th 2007 10:46AM

that would suck, given that you need to point at the sensor bar, wii play and zelda (crossbow and hookshot) would be terribly uncomfortable and highly inaccurate.

Not to mention navigating through menus...

Todd @ Mar 29th 2007 10:50AM

Hmm, not really well versed on how things look when on acid. I'll have to defer to Robert on this one.

Neal @ Mar 29th 2007 10:55AM

I liek shuffleboard.

Anyone else?

Intentless @ Mar 29th 2007 11:01AM

Funny thing is I would be bringing my Wii on the cruise anyway... But now I can play on a huge screen... And honestly Miis arn't so wonderful to look at that I am going to worry about pixelation...

C. Grant @ Mar 29th 2007 11:05AM

Nintendo should include their obligatory warnings before turning your eyes *away* from their games. That room, more than any Pokemon game, is a recipe for seizures.

phantom42 @ Mar 29th 2007 11:23AM

like some others, i personally wouldn't want to be playing video games while on my vacation - at this point in my life.

that said, i also remember my cruise vacation when i was in third grade. at nights, there wasn't much to do as a kid while my parents were out partying. i could go hang out in the playroom which had one tv with one movie, or i could go sit in the bunk and read. back then, i would have loved it if they had had a game system there to play.

sure, OUR vacations may center around getting drunk or getting laid, but not everyones does. this is just one more activity for people who have nothing to do, or just want to do something else.

Yoshi Likes Boys @ Mar 29th 2007 11:16AM

It's Norweigan Cruise Lines' secret discriminatory campaign against the epileptic. And now you've gone and BLOWN IT WIDE OPEN. Thanks a lot.

sheppy @ Mar 29th 2007 11:20AM

Yo, JodyAnthony... you got a new devwatcher. Wonder who it could be...

On Topic... maybe it's just me and playing too much God Of War recently but I see that room and I have one thought.... end this combo by holding down Triangle.

JodyAnthony @ Mar 29th 2007 11:36AM

good point, phantom42.

AirIntake @ Mar 29th 2007 11:42AM

You shouldn't bring your children on a cruise. It's like people who bring kids to Vegas. "It's for children now", my ass.

Booxatron @ Mar 29th 2007 11:42AM

Lagomorpho-

Considering that "Norwegia" doesn't exist, I'd say no.

Norway is what you're thinking of. :)

mr mobius @ Mar 29th 2007 12:04PM

This will only realistically work if the cruise ships have the common sense to set up their own custom sensor bar.

The ship should have two infra red lights spaced further apart so that the wiimote thinks that the normal sensor bar is closer to it. This way there will be less erratic movements and the wiimote will actually point to roughly where the actual pointer is on screen.

I'd say good idea for nights for older people who may never have played games. Kids might like it but for them there should especially be more games made available as they develop good multiplayer games, because kids get bored easier, and more will have the wii and have played them games before.

I'd maybe play at night, but during the day I'd rather be chilling against a railing on deck listening to my mp3 player or doing something else.

jabbertrack @ Mar 29th 2007 12:07PM

lol kidtendo m i rite?!

brandon @ Mar 29th 2007 12:08PM

Wait, where's Wii Shuffleboard? Or Wii Curling? Ok, so curling kind of exists on WarioWare Smooth Moves, but I'm talking three player curling with a curler and two people sweeping. I hope they make Wii Sports 2 with these games. I'd like to see them implement Wii Basketball too, and now just realized how much that would look like those Backyard Sports games.

BIG Reub @ Mar 29th 2007 1:23PM

@28

Humor:
1. Funny Quality - the quality or content of something, for example, a story, performance, or joke, that elicits amusement and laughter

Thanks for understanding that not every one on the planet is as ignorant as you might expect. "Norwegia", like "Canadia" & "Do you speak Mexican?" are ways that any one who has some knowledge of pop culture or understands irony (which can be defined as "incongruity - incongruity between what actually happens and what might be expected to happen, especially when this disparity seems absurd or laughable) would find funny.

It's also ironic that this post about humors is in no way funny at all.

Sucks to be me.

Kris Belau @ Mar 29th 2007 4:26PM

Is anyone else worried about the safety of passengers on these cruises. They're playing the Wii on a boat that is constantly rocking/moving, under what look to be icicle of death on the ceiling, while in what seems to be a psychedelic room.

It is cool that the Wii is being used in these applications though. I love to see gaming reach out to people who would have normally seen it as "kiddy" and "waste of time"

Everyone who pushes Nintendo off as "childish" needs to remember that they are doing what the other systems cannot. It actually turns out that non-gamers enjoy a system where high-def blood and gore aren't the only draw factors. Perhaps after getting "hooked" by the Wii they will move on to the PS3 or 360, but the fact still remains... it is CONSIDERED far more childish to play GTA and Halo than it is to play the Wii..

thomas @ Mar 29th 2007 2:54PM

Drunk Norwegians + Motion control + Cruise ship + Waves =

... TEH MOTHER OF ALL WIINJURIES!!!1!

ackmondual @ Mar 29th 2007 3:42PM

will these Wiis be offered in lieu of the real deals (like actual bowling shuffleboard, billiards, and hell Y not samurai sword swinging)? If so, it'd be sooo wrong, but would save the cruise lines sooo much $$.

LaughingTarget @ Mar 29th 2007 5:32PM

Why wait to be old? I yell at kids to get off my lawn now. It is fun.

Bluebreaker @ Mar 29th 2007 7:35PM

Um, why go on a cruise at all? The chances of getting real sick on one are higher than any other travel related mishap. (Including the boat getting caught in a storm) Furthermore DS lite is the Traveller's Choice! Even businessmen play with them on the planes. Getting to be worse than the cell phone people. Tons of DS people playing and no one wants to have a versus match. -_-;

Mr Khan @ Mar 29th 2007 7:50PM

There's a reason i keep coming back to joystiq

And it's for the fanboy rants, the psuedo-intellection discussions (like this thread), and the futurama/Captain Planet references (again, like this thread)

On topic: I'd be afraid to view ANYTHING on a screen that size, i'd be willing to bet even Oblivion would look bad...

Hman @ Mar 30th 2007 9:29AM

I work at Norwegian and they had a Wii set up in the cafeteria today WOO-HOO!!!!!

Tim @ Mar 30th 2007 8:52AM

I've played Wii Sports on a screen that big, and it probably had less picture quality than that one. Needless to say, it was a load of fun.

Stop whining about picture quality. Quality is good, but you don't NEED it to have fun.

rokerovakero @ Mar 30th 2007 2:24PM

Of course it will look bad on such a big screen, but the matter is this is for having fun not looking at .1 mm pixels "super-awesome" resolution. If they did liked that, they would be putting Xbox360s for their customers.

The whole truth is the Wii is taking over this gen, HD or not, if you can't take the heat get out of Dodge City...

Matters @ Mar 30th 2007 2:46PM

AirIntake: I hate to tell you this but the same thing is true for anything in 1080i/p so what is your fucking point?

A 50ft screen is huge and the difference between 480 and 1080 on that screen isn't going to seem like all that much.

Matters @ Mar 30th 2007 2:49PM

JodyAnthony: You ever actually been on a cruise ship?

There is a reason they're so big and it's not just to hold all the people. Yeah you'll spend a lot of time out on the deck but not all of your time. There's a reason there are so many other activities to do on the ship.. Bars.. Dance clubs.. Fitness areas, restaurants, swimming pools, arcades, movies.. just about anything you can think of..

It's more than just going to see the ocean (which gets quite boring after a while.. when you realize that it goes on forever and forever and there isn't really much to see)...

It's a complete entertainment package all built into one.